


You

by MaskoftheRay



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, Experimental Style, Gen, Heartbreak, If you're reading this on your phone turn it sideways, Joker loves Batman but Bats don't love him back, Major character death - Freeform, Mobile Unfriendly, Other, POV Second Person, Pining Joker (DCU), Sad Ending, Unrequited Love, poem, trying something new here, tw: Mentions of Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-16 22:15:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20610218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaskoftheRay/pseuds/MaskoftheRay
Summary: Joker realizes something one day: Batman,Bruce, willneverlove him. And after this point, nothing can remain the same.





	You

**Author's Note:**

> So. I finally did it (kind of). I wrote one of those ‘second-person POV’ fics. I tend to think that they’re kind of gimmicky, although I HAVE read some very beautiful ones (that even made me cry). It depends on the writer, I guess. 
> 
> This is more experimental, compared to some of my other stuff, so fair warning. However, I do regularly write poetry IRL, and I was excited when I came up with this idea. Hope you like it.

And then, one day, you finally look at _the picture_.  
The famous picture.  
The one you’ve never wanted to look at  
before. The one you’ve never _let_ yourself  
look at before, even when you first figured out his name, his _real_ name—  
and boy, if that wasn’t proof that the universe  
(or _something_ out there) has a sense of humor, then nothing is—  
some things are just _too personal_. Some things are best forgotten.

He is in a suit— not _his **suit**_, but a charcoal-gray one, and  
it’s too small. No. _He’s_ too small. Sill chubby-faced, only with  
disconcertingly too-grown eyes. Next to him, the faithful butler;  
still most-dear to him today, you know. You **always** know  
whom others hold _most dear_. It is why you have no one.

The photo is intimate. It is haunting. It is... it makes something  
even in _your_ cold, dead (but somehow still-beating) heart ache.  
It is loss. _His_ loss. The same deep, profound sense of loss that  
calls to you, gnaws on your bones, whispers into the fog  
of your mind, and dances at the edges of your vision.

You swallow, and shudder. And then you laugh and laugh and laugh  
until Harley asks (worriedly), “What’s so funny, puddin’?”

You gasp, tears streaming down your face, but manage to reply,  
“Everything.” _Everything._ You finally **understand **everything.  
The universe has split open, like an egg on the pavement,  
or the way a head does under a crowbar. You understand now,  
and _nothing_  
will ever be the same again.

Later that week, you go out and kill eight children.  
It doesn’t help. It doesn’t fix the _hole_ that this sacred,  
forbidden knowledge has rent in you.  
In your chest.  
Innocence, forsaken.  
Paradise lost.

The bruises and loose teeth he gives you  
make you numb. They don’t leave you **burning**  
like they once did before.  
The universe has changed, and you  
feel like a new man. A snake with  
shed skin, a hermit crab without  
a shell. The _vulnerability_ of it  
makes your skin crawl.

Nothing makes it better.  
You slowly stop eating.  
You don’t _laugh_ anymore.  
Harley grows more concerned.

But _see_, you **know** now. You were stupid enough  
to figure it out, and now you’ve gone and wrecked it all—  
peeled back the mask and exposed the clown beneath.  
It’s ruined because you _understand_.  
You understand that Bruce  
is, at heart, a mama’s boy. A goody two-shoes.  
A lost, scared orphan— and he will **never** change.

He will never, ever, ever, ever, want _you_.

So the game becomes pointless, and the balance,  
the balance you have so carefully wrought  
between you has _shattered_. The knowledge  
has broken something inside you.

The gyre has spun, the blood-tides turned.  
History lashes and cuts and runs blood-deep,  
spiraling in and drowning, choking, on  
_itself_. And you, your center, cannot hold  
any longer—

because the effervescent, wordless **longing**  
that scratched in your head  
has finally escaped.

So, one day, you step off the roof.

In your brief and intangible final moments  
you think about what could have been:  
old men, wheezing, you dying in an amusement park tunnel,  
batarang in your eye and your neck snapped.  
You, not much older, choking, you both  
surrounded by sirens as he has the last laugh—  
even though it was _you_ who told the killing joke.  
In a police station hidden from the world,  
he questions you, **angrier** and more scared,  
_so scared_, than you’ve ever seen him before:  
“Why did you do it? Why Superman?”  
And then Big Blue himself comes to finish you off.

In every scenario, there is a simple conclusion.  
An elegant formula. A dance, which leads to  
one, dramatic final act.  
You _must_ die.

You only regret  
not being able to stay longer.  
Batman is a wonderful dance partner…

In the days after, Gotham reels.

From down below (and at _this_ you aren’t surprised),  
you watch as Batman silently approaches the small,  
unmarked slab at the crossroads where your earthly  
remains are buried (some had called for letting you _rot_  
out in the open. Surprisingly, Bruce Wayne had argued that  
that would make them all no better than _you_. Everyone  
deserves a burial). 

You watch as Batman approaches, looks ponderously  
at your grave, a look that lasts mere seconds,  
and then walks— wordlessly— away.

For a moment your heart stops—  
figuratively speaking. You are held still by  
shock. Then you _scream_. And keep  
screaming and screaming and screaming—  
for all eternity.

This is **hell** after all.

**Author's Note:**

> To sate your curiosity: when I wrote this, the photo I pictured is one of Bruce at his parents’ funeral. 
> 
> I reference/was influenced by William Butler Yeats’ poem, “The Second Coming.” You can find the full version of it [here](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming). 
> 
> I reference other comics/DC materials throughout the poem too. Obviously don't own them or the scenarios. Though I sometimes wish I did. 
> 
> I don’t usually like Batjokes at **all** because I feel like there’s not much psychological or emotional ground for it (don’t @ me, it’s just an opinion) but recently I (re)read some _very_ good, well-written Batjokes fics, and they got me in the mood to write this. Synthwave’s [You're My Excuse to Travel](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5595838), and Ringshadow’s [Thirsty](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18969388) are both very good. So is altered_eagle’s [And It Spread](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10941975), and etothepii’s [Ten Years](https://archiveofourown.org/works/142438). Check ‘em out!


End file.
